


Fuck Yeah It Hurts

by bloodpopsicles



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Cass is hopeless, F/M, Unrequited, drug talk, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 06:28:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7423669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodpopsicles/pseuds/bloodpopsicles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately following the confrontation in the closet during Sundowner. Cass and Tulip talk it out, see where they stand, and try to negotiate something akin to a platonic relationship with varying results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fuck Yeah It Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, here's another stab at Cass and Tulip, a loose follow up to my really short ficlet You're A Pain in the Neck, Darling. I got a great response on that, so I thought I'd write something a bit longer. I think we as a fandom need some resolution between these two, so this is my imagined version of them talking things out. Let me know if you like it! I love how supportive y'all have been, and I love writing for such a rad audience.

Cass felt like putting a bullet in his skull, painting the attic with brain matter. It wouldn't kill him, he knew as much from... experience. But it may just snap him out of this bloody stupid lovesickness. Right idiot he was. His best mate's girl? Fuckin' hell.

He didn't know how long he stood alone in that closet, staring at the floor and going over the facts in his head. At least half an hour. But finally, he shivered, shaking the weight off his shoulders, and cleared his throat. No use in moping about.

Off course it didn't mean nothin'. He'd had plenty 'a shags that didn't mean nothin'--bad lays are something you accumulate over the century. But Tulip was anything but a bad lay. She scared him, which was not easily done. And he liked it, that she made him nervous. He never had even an inkling the machinations of her mind, whether she was gonna kiss him or impale him or--what was it? Stab him in the face with a dull Phillips head screwdriver. To be honest he'd welcome all three if it meant she gave 'im the time o' day. Least it made him feel alive again. Just a look at 'er made his insides squirm, his heart drop heavy into his gut, gave him that lightheaded heroin high without the needle. And that, even through the decades, was rare.

But there was Jesse Custer. Cass had almost forgotten what friendship, companionship, loyalty, hell, fuckin basic kindness had looked like. Then Jesse had stormed into his life, a catastrophe in a white collar with delusions of grandeur and nothing to lose. They'd known each other for what, a few weeks? But already Cass couldn't imagine betraying him, would rather take a thousand gunshots to the gut from killer angels than let anything hurt Jess.

Between the storage closet and the ladder to the belfry Cass had resigned himself. It wouldn't happen. Could never happen. Not that it didn't hurt any less knowing it. 

So it was a surprise to say the least when Cass found Tulip, hands on her hips, perusing his makeshift apartment above the chapel. 

"Aye now," he protested sheepishly. "I 'aven't had time to tidy, didn't know I was having guests."

Tulip turned sharply on her heel. She fixed him with a look, and the words started spilling out of him, frantic.

"Right, now Jess had mentioned a lass once or twice, and what with hindsight 20/20 and all that there were a few hints I might well have picked up on if I wasn't so... Fucked up most o' the time. But I swear on me life, and other things worth a great deal more, that I didn't know you were..." Cass trailed off and sighed, meeting her gaze. "His."

Tulip nodded, eyebrow cocked. "Let's get one thing straight, I ain't nobody's. Nobody's but my own. And Jesse, well let's just say he don't got a lick of sense if he thinks I ain't gonna get my kicks while he spends his nights with the lord and his lonesome. But he's gonna wise up, soon if I got anything to say about it, and he may not be happy with our little... Indiscretion. But then again what Jesse don't know don't hurt him."

Cass nodded, and repeated "Kicks," under his breath. 

Tulip heaved a sigh. "Look now," she offered as she strode toward him and placed a hand gingerly on his shoulder. Cass had to suppress a shiver, but his darting eyes betrayed him. "I didn't mean to make you fall in love with me, 'specially since I threw you out a window. Thought that'd pretty much guarantee you'd hate me actually. But how could I have known you was a vampire with a bleedin' heart and a hard on?"

Cass chuckled, feeling like he got punched in the gut.

"And I slept with ya cause I wanted to, that's the long and short of it. Plus, I didn't hear you complainin'."

"Aye, you're right about that," Cass conceded. "So that's that eh? We keep this little tryst under our hats from the Padre, go about our merry way?"

"'Xactly," Tulip answered.

Straining a grin, Cass added "Promise I won't tryn' get into yer knickers because I'm nothin' if not loyal to my best mate, but I gotta say Tulip... can't just stop lovin' yeh. Don't work like that, does it? So I'll keep it to meself, and in me pants, but I'd be lyin' if I said I was anything other than yours." 

Tulip started to stammer out a reply, her eyes fiery, but Cass pulled away and leveled her with a stare. "Nobody's but yours."

And quick as a flash the lopsided grin and wicked glint in his eye were back, like nothing had happened. You live long enough you get good at pretending. It's a survival mechanism.

"So if you'll excuse me love," Cass continued as he sauntered over to the sorry cot he called a bed. "I've got to drink long and hard about a few things." As he spoke Cass reached into the corner and fished out a half-empty bottle of Ratwater, clinking the empties, of which there seemed plenty.

Tulip just stood there, arms crossed, staring at the floor but not really seeing. She shook her head a bit and snapped awake. He eyed her and nervously picked at the peeling label on the liquor bottle, trying not to focus on the curve of her cheek or the dying light shinin' off her hair. Trying and failing.

"Can I ask you somethin'?" 

He sighed and closed his eyes, right on the edge of telling her to fuck off. But instead, he heard himself say, in a tired voice, "Anything."

Tulip crossed the room and leaned against the wall next to him, not unlike their little chat in her bedroom the morning after the whorehouse incident. "How you drink so much, get so fucked up? Is it different, since you're..." The sound of a smile seeped through her words, even though Cass was warily tracking a stray sunbeam across the wooden floor. 

"Dead? To say the least," he chuckled in spite of himself. "For people, using can end three ways--yeh get royally fucked up, yeh recover, or yeh die. Now, when yeh can't die, it's more a question of why not, innit? I got all the time in the world for sobriety, so why not waste a few decades feelin' everything. Anyway, that's 'ow I look at it. 'Sides, I wouldn't want to waste the ability to regenerate a new kidney, where's the fun in that?"

Tulip raised her eyebrows and nodded. "Makes sense I suppose. One more thing--"

"What, is this an interrogation?" Cass asked with a swig, half-serious. "And me without a bloody barrister present-"

"Did I hurt you?"

That shut him up alright.

"I-I been wonderin', if it hurt, what I did the other night. If you can hurt." Her words tumbled out and her face got hot. She couldn't seem to look him in the eye, but his gaze was steady on her face. "Cause hell if I know anything about vampires, if you can feel pain, or--"

"It always hurts," Cass answered. Not condescending or mocking, just honest, steady. "As a general rule, everything always hurts, just as much as it would you or anybody else. But yeh get used to it, till its second nature, till yeh don't really notice. After so long it seems obvious, but the worst part o' pain is the fear, fear yeh ain't gonna make it. 'Course, that ain't the case fer me. So yeah, yeh hurt me right bad, but I'm a tough ol' bastard and I've survived worse, so let's not lose any sleep over it eh?"

"Well I'm sorry then," Tulip muttered, finally meeting his gaze. 

Cass cracked the smallest of smiles. "Just promise not to do it again."


End file.
